Skerik is one of a rare breed. A catalyst
whose considerable talent and infectious enthusiasm keeps the stew brewin'.
Says producer Dan Prothero,
"I first heard Skerik back in 1994. He blew three notes, I mean his first three notes, and
I knew he was something special. And, believe me, the band heard it too.
You never saw musicians come to life so fast, amazed at this guy who was
just sitting in."

That night
was the start of an ongoing relationship between Dan and Skerik,
beginning with some collaborative work with Dan's projects
The Rhythm Section
and
New Legends.
Somehow along the way, Skerik got increasingly involved with Fog City alumni
Galactic.
He was gracious enough to agree to join
Galactic
on the San Jose to Los Angeles leg of their first-ever West Coast tour,
in the lean days
way back in 1996
(now referred to as the "hard leg tour").
And as far back as 1997
he was showing up unannounced and bumrushing the stage to freak the funk
with them
(Washington DC in March 1997 was a particularly memorable example)...

We were so glad that he also agreed to join Galactic drummer Stanton Moore on
his first solo outing,
All Kooked Out!
(on Fog City Records).
Offbeat Magazine had this to say about the results:

"
Skerik makes a point of proving wrong every band director who has told
a saxophone student that squawks are bad by accenting his phrases and solos
with noises so far off the charts that writing them out would be an
exercise in futility. His outbursts create an intriguing dynamic
counterpoint to Moore and Hunter's polished pairing.
"
(Alex Oliver, Offbeat Magazine)

The All Kooked Out session
not only yielded what has become one of Fog City's classic releases,
but also the first
Garage A Trois
recordings.

Skerik is always busy with
Critters Buggin.
Critters is a fearsome foursome of truly creative musicians that create
a one-of-a-kind live experience -- come with an open mind and it will get blown!
Recent Critters tours have had them joining Medeski Martin Wood...
Most recently,
he and other members of Critters Buggin joined Galactic on
stage at Bumbershoot in Skerik's hometown of Seattle.

Skerik's also hooked up as a founding member of
Tuatara, a supergroup of
multi-instrumentalists making adventurous acoustic music
for Epic Records. The press seems to like to
call it jazz-rock, but it sounds more like
Ennio Morricone's lounge project to us.

Skerik organized some of the baddest live players
from the Seattle music scene
(Wayne Horvitz, Bobby Previte, and Dave Palmer)
for his project
Ponga.
The Boston Phoenix called it
"Sun Ra's Magic City as dreamed up by the Orb."
Other projects include a short run with Roger Waters
and a semi-permanent slot with Les Claypool's Flying Frog Brigade.

The Seattle Weekly's cover story ("Jazz In The City") had some
good insight into the jazz scene in the Northwest.
Some outtakes, starting with a quote from Skerik:

"We have to really hustle and play in a lot of bands just to
make the rent, $200. But I chose to live in Seattle because it is a
good home base. I got family, I was born and raised there - it's my tribe...
I'm trying to keep a low profile, like the band Blotallica.
It came about because we wanted to play music without any
expectations from an outside source. We just put the name out
there and people come. It's not anything the media has told them
to be a part of. If you go someplace an play your ass off,
something's gonna happen. I have faith in that...
I'm trying to coordinate individual musicians, people that aren't plastic,
man, to do free things at public schools.
We come with a history of the music on our instruments.
I remember being really inspired by people in high school."

While it would be wonderful to see everyone from Buddy Catlett to
Julian Priester,
Mike Stone,
Wayne Horvitz,
and Bill Frisell making good money at a nice club, perhaps all in the same
band, that's not necessarily what would fatten the scene up so that players
could make more beer money playing in local clubs and restaurants.
Even young, vivacious players like Skerik, the skinny Critters Buggin'
saxophonist with the far-out sound, is disturbed by the sparse life a
creative player must lead. He first jumps to blame it on our techno culture.
"You can call this conversation punk jazz versus virtual McWorld."
said Skerik, "Computers and music videos are two big ways to avoid reality.
People who work their day job and don't wanna go out to a club because
they can't control the situation and would rather stay home and watch a
video or be on the Internet - that's a mullet lifestyle.
The music I play is my life; it's 24 hours of immersing myself in
reality and taking everything with it, beauty and ugliness, good
and bad things."

And that is what Skerik puts into his playing,
everything that he has going for him at the moment,
and it's paid off.
Critters Buggin'
has gained some success with a sort of spacey, improvised, funk music,
and is about to release a second record on the LooseGroove label.
The Critters' work doesn't cover all the bills, though,
so Skerik is also in Blotallica, Motel 6, the Mingus Band, etc.
He isn't all that worried that he's not rolling in money.
In fact, he knows that comes with the territory when you are breaking
new ground. "Playing instrumental music is like quitting your job
and starting your own business. You're prepared to be alone," he said.
"and people in the music industry are very cynical about instrumental music.
Tney immediately think people aren't going to like it because it's not
like anything out there."

That exact thought has probably crossed Julain Priester's mind many times,
particularly when he played with Sun Ra, creating music that was so
challenging and avant-garde that for decades the band leader was
considered a kook. Also in that vein, as Skerik reminded me,
is the fact that it took 30 years for Miles Davis' Kind Of Blue
to sell a million copies. This is not music that offers quick fixes
for those seeking employment, or even for those looking for an evening of
vapid entertainment. By its very nature jazz -- and I am compelled to
include Skerik, Stone, Combo Craig, Horvitz, and many of the young
players in this category because they meet the basic criteria for jazz:
They can swing and improvise -- is still struggling to move forward.